Just a word of caution… when it comes to the DJT chaos known as transition, remember that his so-called-transition operation is pretty much of a Reality TV show with leaks spewing forth from all directions.

MSM will jump on every bit of speculation as if it’s fact.

Interesting. GMA deleted tweet saying Trump had named Gen. Mike Flynn National Security Advisor and walked it back to this… https://t.co/aI8p3DJsGx

Thanks for the beautiful post, Nerdy, and congratulations to Grab a Mop Grace on first. Will be catching the BET broadcast of their event at the White House tonight. Last night was the pleasure of hearing and seeing Leslie Odom Jr. in concert with his jazz band. It was such a lift!

The OFA FB page is public. The about page lists their contact as the one for OFA national: Info at barack obama dot com

They also give the main website address for OFA: barack obama dot com

On the main OFA website there is a Get Involved link, or you can scroll down and click “contact us” where you are instructed to set up an account before someone contacts you. Maybe you have already tried that, but, if not, hope that was helpful!

This is ABSOLUTELY wonderful. Her nickname was “Amazing Grace.” The Irish in me has to go now to the segment in my memories called “My connection to Grace Hopper”:

Back in the late ’80s, I was a civilian collateral-duty federal women’s program manager at our Navy command. Actually had arranged for retired Rear Adm. Hopper to come speak to our workforce during Women’s History Month. (The scientists and engineers at my command were in awe, since they held her in such high regard. I barely knew who she was at the time, truth be told. Ha.) Before the date, her staff called to say she unfortunately had broken her hip (I think it was), was in a wheelchair, and very regretfully had to decline. It was our loss.

That doesn’t matter. The moment he is declared the next occupant of the WH, all of his communication tools should be secured. You’ve seen photos of PBO on vacation working from secure rooms. That’s why the idea of continuing to live in Trump Tower rather than the WH will require a lot of preparation.

But the good news is that cabinet officials do need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Saw tweets in the past 24 hours that few “real” GOP want to be part of DJT’s ocean liner (#Titanic) government, so he has few options but to nominate the craziest loons — who may not receive Senate confirmation.

Though did see one that said Ted Cruz might be nominated for SCOTUS, which would be horrible for us all, but be good news for TX.

Well, luckily, SCOTUS nominations have to be confirmed by the Senate, and I’m pretty sure Cruz remains one of the most disliked by the other members. But, hey, it’s a whole different ballgame out there now. Anything could happen. It’s almost like every day there’s a “What could be worse? question asked and answered, isn’t it?

“The comfort of being “naturally better than,” of not having to struggle or demand civil treatment, is hard to give up. The confidence that you will not be watched in a department store, that you are the preferred customer in high-end restaurants—these social inflections, belonging to whiteness, are greedily relished.”

*****************

“William Faulkner understood this better than almost any other American writer. In “Absalom, Absalom,” incest is less of a taboo for an upper-class Southern family than acknowledging the one drop of black blood that would clearly soil the family line. Rather than lose its “whiteness” (once again), the family chooses murder. ”

In one very significant way, Hillary Clinton’s unwavering call for equal protection and racial justice was different than the historic candidacy of Barack Obama. Where Barack Obama had to struggle to rise above the perception of being “the black candidate” by groundbreaking speeches on race relations in America that put some in white America at a greater ease voting for a black man, Hillary Clinton’s fierce defense of people of color was seen by many of the same people in white America as offensive. Why? Because as someone once said in the comments here (I can’t find it for proper credit), Hillary Clinton challenged systemic racism and white privilege as a white person, and forced white people to confront their own sometimes deeply hidden stigma.

We are headed for an incredible problem here. DT is busy undermining every credible news organization in the country while running propaganda on FB, Breibart, Fox et al. This is how you destroy a democracy. Given what his supporters listen to, they will never hear “facts” simply propaganda coming from nothing less than our government. I must admit I was stunned today to learn of the disinformation campaign run on FB the final couple of weeks before the election. I never use FB for “news” so pay no attention to it. But there were more false stories about Hillary on FB during the last couple of weeks of the campaign than “real” stories and apparently that is where quite a few Americans get their news. This is frightening.

I woke to be terrorized. I really am scared. This is treason of the highest order…and his inner circle ALL must have known the plan and condoned the actions and behavior….We need a savior soon, or I fear things very sinister will happen…as Putin laughs.

think about the fact that these concerns were raised before the election by a few dedicated reporters but the majority ignored them as they focused on the trivial “scandals”, making money, and destroying a qualified lady they did not like;

I am afraid that even those who thought that they had done their part in the earlier struggles to save this nation, must now re-join the fight. we need all hands on deck

B/J is busy keeping track of the Congress critters and how they feel about Paul Ryan’s plan to get rid of Medicare. They will update the list as they get more info..and OF COURSE my idiot SUPPORTS Ryan!

The fewest Americans since 1973 filed for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the U.S. labor market is getting tighter.
Jobless claims dropped by 19,000 to 235,000 in the week ended Nov. 12, which included the Veterans Day holiday, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey called for 257,000. Continuing claims fell below 2 million to a 16-year low.
The biggest drop in initial claims since June suggests employers are loath to fire workers as the economy continues its modest expansion and the number of experienced applicants available for hiring remains limited. Filings for unemployment benefits have stayed below 300,000 for 89 straight weeks — the longest streak since 1970 and a level typical for a healthy labor market.
Estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 245,000 to 275,000. The prior week’s reading was unrevised at 254,000.

The earth has warmed barely a single degree Celsius, and yet virtually no place on the planet is unaffected by climate change. That’s the conclusion of both a new study published in the journal Science and a popular-science book out this week, The Unnatural World, by David Biello, the science curator at TED and a Scientific American contributing editor.
“This new age is not just climate change,” Biello writes, “it is everything change: the sky, the sea, the land, the rocks, life itself.”

This new Democratic leadership in the Senate is made up of Dems that basically shot spitballs at President Obama for the last eight years. I do not hold out hope that the likes of Warren and Sanders and Machin will fight the good fight, oh they will talk a good talk but I do not see them fighting the good fight. Hell, before the last vote was counted you had Sanders and Warren going out of their way to say that they will work with Trump. How do you fix your mouth to say that you will work with a homophobe and racist?

White people,especially those with money and influence made the mess that we are in and it is up to other White people to correct it, especially the men. It is very clear for all to see that POC and White women have no real power or influence to wield. Like it was clear from the inception of the constitution to this last election, this country was never about us. Our purpose had always been to be used as powerful white males chose. At the first sign at the possibility of losing some of this privilege and power, they pulled out every weapon and used it to devastating effect. After all of the anguish everyone will call in line, the democrats will not have a plan and even more people will stay home from the mid- terms. We were thrown a few bones from the tables of the powerful and many thought that change was here. Now everyone is awake. Some are so upset because they did not look below the surface and thought that we were well on our way to “liberty and justice for all,” but some of us were woke enough to know that nothing had really changed. So now that we have a real and present danger that will affect almost everyone, what are the “good white people” prepared to do to deal with the mess that white people created? Black people fought in every war hoping that by risking our lives we would be granted equality; it did not happen. We fought to get the vote, showed up in larger percentages than any group and still no equality. Percentage wise the most educated group in this country are A- A women and still no equality. This country has been enriched and improved in so any ways by our talents and our work and still no justice and no equality. Malcolm X and Ali were right then and now. We are done being used; we see clearly now. This country is not and never has been for any POC.

I am not black, but I agree with every.word.you.said. I can never be black , but having a 6 year old black granddaughter has totally awakened me to everything you said. God help us all.

Friends, reading things on this thread — military purge, folks registering, Nikki Hayley SoS………..I get more terrified each minute. I have given up trying to inform my husband. He thinks I am just filled with drama and everything I am reading is bunk. His attitude adds to my fear because it’s a personal and perfect example of millions of our citizens. Head buried in sand and then it’s too late. 😰😰😰😰😰

Its not that Trump is putting the same old Washington hacks in his cabinet, its that these hacks don’t have any experience in running federal agencies. At lease Dr. Carson had the good sense to say that he doesn’t have any governmental experience, even though he was running to be President. Hell, even Bush knew to put people in his cabinet that had government experience. This is a shit-show like no other.

every other comment – is about him. we must not let his negativity overtake TOD. don’t take my word for it, scroll and count how many entries there are related to something or some feeling about him – here on our TOD site.

i think the comments are about resistance to him..and what he represents…should we not talk about what could be catastophic times for America…and folks of color…should we not talk about the upcoming struggle

A friend just texted me and reminded me of the fact that DT wants clearance for his SIL and that could happen as long as he doesn’t take a salary…when (not IF) a situation arises where he sees that Trump Holdings can benefit …wife can not be made to testify against her husband….the tangled web they weave…and Putin laughs at the idiot puppets he masters….

How Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren misread the election.
By Jamelle Bouie

…………………

At first glance, this seems well and good: a firm commitment to winning victories where they are available, tied to an absolute line against policies targeting immigrants, Muslims, or any other group. But there’s a problem here, and it’s found in the cast given to Trump’s campaign and Trump’s voters. Both Warren and Sanders describe Trump’s effort as a populist campaign with an almost incidental use of racial prejudice. In this version, most Trump voters simply wanted a stronger, fairer economy. The attacks on immigrants, Muslims, and black Americans were regrettable, but not a part of the appeal.

Warren and Sanders are wrong, and in a way that signals a significant misreading of the landscape on the part of the most influential Democrats. The simple truth is that Trump’s use of explicit racism—his deliberate attempt to incite Americans against different groups of nonwhites—was integral to his campaign. It was part and parcel of his “populism” and told a larger story: that either at home or abroad, foreigners and their “globalist” allies were cheating the American worker, defined as a white working-class man with a factory job. To claw back the dominion he once enjoyed—to “make America great again”—Trump promised protectionism and “law and order.” He promised to deport immigrants, register Muslims, and build new infrastructure. This wasn’t “populism”; it was white populism. Writes historian Nell Irvin Painter for the New York Times: “This time the white men in charge will not simply happen to be white; they will be governing as white, as taking America back, back to before multiculturalism.”

It seems reasonable for Warren and Sanders to make a distinction between Trump as blue-collar populist and Trump as racist demagogue. But that distinction doesn’t exist. Supporting a Trump-branded infrastructure initiative as a discrete piece of policy where two sides can find common ground only bolsters a white-nationalist politics, even if you oppose the rest of Trump’s agenda. It legitimizes and gives fuel to white tribalism as a political strategy. It shows that there are tangible gains for embracing Trump-style demagoguery. Likewise, it seems reasonable to want to recast support for Trump as an expression of populism. But Trump’s is a racial populism—backed almost entirely by white Americans, across class lines—that revolves around demands to reinforce existing racial and status hierarchies. That’s what it means to “make America great again.” It has nothing to offer to working-class blacks who need safety from unfair police violence just as much as they need higher wages, or working-class Latinos who need to protect their families from draconian immigration laws as much as they need a chance to unionize.

To gesture at individual voters and say they aren’t racists—the usual rejoinder to this argument—is to miss the point. White voters backed Trump as a bloc. They ignored his bigotry and elevated his call for a new nationalism, centered on white Americans. Whatever their actual intentions—whether they were partisan Republicans, hardcore Trumpists, or simply disgusted with Hillary Clinton—they voted for white nationalism, full stop.

Several readers sent me an excellent link to a Google Sheet containing contact information and suggested scripts for people to talk to their Congresscritters. This is very useful. I am not 100% thrilled with the script as it is more advocacy instead of information gathering but it is a good starting point

Suggest you each begin pondering all you can do to convince that relic of slavery, aka Electoral College, to abandon the 4th Reich and preserve the United States of America. Likely, the last chance to do so before …..

I hate to be a downer, but one statement by Abraham Lincoln has been swimming in my head the last week: ” America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

I sent this quote to all three evening news anchors and asked them to be courageous and stand up to Trump. I pointed out that he is treating this entire election and transition as a reality show, and demeaning the office and the country. I don’t expect my email will even be read, or that if read it will change anything, but I have to speak up, and these three are arbiters of what happens. Perhaps in addition to contacting our congress people, we start contacting the press. An avalanche of similar messages will eventually have an effect.

Honestly, for eight years, my picture of President Obama has been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike holding back the flood….a wonderful interlude between hideous Republican administrations. Remember what Louis XV was supposed to have said: Apres moi, le deluge.

I a so glad we had that wonderful time in D.C. in June. At that time all good things were possible. I treasure that time.